Biden Dealt Major Blow as SCOTUS Orders Lower Court to Reconsider Border Wall Funding: 'Changed Circumstances'
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed the Biden administration a stunning defeat with regard to construction on former President Donald Trump’s border wall, which currently sits incomplete as illegal immigrants continue to flood across the open border.
The country’s high court ordered lower courts to vacate previous rulings about the wall, citing “changed circumstances” in the case. Environmental activists, activist judges, Democrats in Congress and private law organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union have of course opposed the wall since before concrete was ever poured.
The Trump administration in 2019 declared a national emergency at the border. The White House and Defense Department then diverted $3.6 billion in military funds to begin the project.
Trump accomplished bypassing Congress by invoking his authority under the National Emergencies Act. Soon, the lawsuits were being filed.
The Sierra Club, a left-wing environmental organization, was among many who filed lawsuits seeking an injunction to have the project stopped. The ACLU also filed a lawsuit and won when the District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that the Trump White House could not use Pentagon funds to secure the border.
Last October, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit — historically known for siding in favor of far-left causes — ordered wall construction to halt while agreeing with the district court.
On appeal, the Ninth Circuit agreed with the lower court ruling to stop the project.
“This appeal presents the question of whether the emergency military construction authority provided by 10 U.S.C. § 2808 (“Section 2808”) authorized eleven border wall construction projects on the southern border of the United States,” the appeals court said. “We conclude that it did not. We also consider whether the district court properly granted the Organizational Plaintiffs a permanent injunction and whether the district court improperly denied the State Plaintiffs’ request for a separate permanent injunction”
Now, the Supreme Court is involved, and it’s vacated the district court ruling and ordered the appellate court to take another look at the cases.
“The judgment [of the district court] is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit with instructions to direct the District Court to vacate its judgments,” the Supreme Court said in a ruling on Monday.
“The District Court should consider what further proceedings are necessary and appropriate in light of the changed circumstances in this case,” the country’s high court added.
On his first day in office, President Joe Biden ordered construction on the wall to be halted through an executive order.
“Like every nation, the United States has a right and a duty to secure its borders and protect its people against threats,” Biden said in a proclamation. “But building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution.”
Biden went on to all the project “a waste of money that diverts attention from genuine threats to our homeland security.”
That was before his administration spent trillions of dollars on numerous items on the liberal wishlist. The Biden White House is of course now proposing trillions more in new spending that makes Trump’s $3.6 billion wall look like pocket change.
“My Administration is committed to ensuring that the United States has a comprehensive and humane immigration system that operates consistently with our Nation’s values,” Biden also said on Jan. 20. “In furtherance of that commitment, I have determined that the declaration of a national emergency at our southern border in Proclamation 9844 of February 15, 2019 … was unwarranted.”
If there wasn’t a national emergency on the border in January, there most certainly is now.
The Supreme Court did not elaborate Monday on what “changed circumstances” directed it to order lower courts to revisit previous rulings about the border wall. Perhaps the fact that the country’s border with Mexico has become a national security issue, a humanitarian crisis and an international embarrassment played a role.
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